New York Startup Brings Sharing to Cycling

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New York Startup Brings Sharing to Cycling

A peek inside the lockbox.

Car-sharing services are increasingly popular in the United States, particularly in urban areas where it's more convenient and cost-efficient to borrow a car instead of own one. But many urban dwellers and visitors still find a car impractical because of parking, traffic and other concerns.

Enter bike-sharing services, which slowly but surely are making their way across the United States and Europe. As many cyclists know, bikes have low overhead, they're good for the environment, they're good for you and they're convenient. For those reasons and more, the growing number of bike-sharing services are popular where they are available.

One bike-sharing service getting a lot of attention lately is SoBi, or Social Bikes. The startup, founded by Ryan Rzepecki, approaches bike sharing differently, saving some serious cash upon deployment and giving riders more flexibility.

For those who aren't familiar with how resource-sharing services typically work, check out our story about the technology behind Zipcar. In a nutshell, cars are kept in small car lots (or bike stations in the case of B-Cycle, a company planning to deploy shared bikes in Chicago) throughout a given city. Users reserve them online and retrieve them at a designated time.

There is no human interaction required. Once the car (or bike) is reserved, users identify themselves by RFID (Zipcar) or personal identification number (B-Cycle), which unlocks the car (or bike). Done? Simply return the vehicle to the same lot. B-Cycle lets you return the bike to any B-Cycle station.

SoBi follows a similar path, but the technology is a bit more advanced.

"The way bike share systems like this typically work is you have these kiosks and docking stations throughout the city. One of the first successful bike share systems was one in Paris, which now has over 20,000 bikes," Rzepecki said. "In the U.S., there are new companies like Fixie and B-cycle, but our system takes it one step further technology-wise. The idea is that you can put all the authorization and the security systems right onto the bike itself."

SoBi doesn't use cycle stations; the bikes are parked throughout the city (starting in New York) at regular racks. Bikes could, in fact, be anywhere at any given time, not just at a designated station that could be blocks away. Users can grab any bike that isn't already reserved and drop it off anywhere. No need to search for a drop-off station.

Like a Zipcar, each SoBi bike has its own "lockbox" (shown above) that communicates wirelessly with SoBi servers via GPS and a cellular receiver (an H-24 module from Motorola). When you make a reservation online or via smartphone, a map displays all the bikes in the area and gives you the option of unlocking a specific bike by clicking on it.

"The server verifies your account and sends your account info to the lockbox, so you can unlock it with your PIN," Rzepecki said.

A smartphone isn't required, but it is the easiest way to reserve a bike. SoBi is working on a way to walk up to a bikes and enter your PIN. As long as the bike isn't already reserved, you'll be able to ride away.

"I think it's important to realize that not everybody is using smartphones. I think that's the trend, and we wanted to focus on where the technology is going, not where it's been," Rzepecki said. "But I think at the same time you have to accommodate people who might not be comfortable with launching an app and finding and unlocking a bike that way. And I don't think that people just want to use a keypad to enter their account number."

Because bikes could be locked anywhere at any given time, SoBi doesn't cater to those who like to plan far in advance. Rzepecki said the service is meant primarily for on-the-spot rentals, though a bike will remain locked – or "reserved" – for you up to 15 minutes after you reserve it. If you park a bike to run into the deli for a bagel, you'll have 10 minutes to return before someone else can grab it.

Because the lockbox contains a GPS module, a cell chip and a lock that works with a PIN pad, it obviously requires some power. SoBi is working out the kinks but plans to power the devices with a hub dynamo on the rear wheel.

The big questions about SoBi after "How does it work?" is what does it cost to implement. Rzepecki says a conventional bike sharing system with stations can run $3,000 to $4,000 per bike to launch. A SoBi lockbox can be produced for around $500 plus the cost of the bike. This makes it easier to deploy more bikes more quickly and eliminates much of the concern about finding space for bike stations.

There will be a few bike stations where people redistribute bikes around the city and where users can always find a bike. In fact, there will be a financial reward for users who return bikes to designated hubs, perhaps a buck or two per bike. That may not sound like much, but those little credits can add up fast, and riding a couple extra blocks isn't a big deal to most cyclists.

So what will it cost users? SoBi hasn't decided exactly how it wants users to pay for their bike use, but it will likely be via membership.

"I envision a system where a user pays an annual or monthly fee that grants you a certain amount of free time each day. Perhaps 90-120 minutes," Rzepecki said. "If you go over that amount, you will be charged a higher day-pass rate."

Of course there's concern about users destroying or stealing bikes. Rzepecki said those who lose or destroy a bike will be charged between $500 and $1,000—a typical amount for most bike sharing services.

Bike sharing services are still so rare that many people would be happy to have them at all. Still, it's wise to implement things the right way the first time around, and SoBi looks to be aiming for the best balance of cost and technology out of all the options thus far. The company is still a startup, though, so it's possible that SoBi will never extend outside of the Big Apple.

*This story was originally published by Ars Technica. *

Main photo: mclcbooks / Flickr. A line of bikes in a bike sharing program in Denver.